After World War One, the Middle East was a battleground of economic competition between oil companies. The British exercising their colonial power were first to establish control over Middle Eastern oil. But then the US insisted on a share of its own. What did the ultimate settlement look like once the colonial powers and their national oil majors had divided up all the region's oil concessions amongst themselves? And how how did that both make and reflect the colonial order in the Middle East?
Featuring Giuliano Garavini on his book The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century. The first of a two-part series on the 20th-century history of petrostates, petrocapitalists, and the world system.
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